Escape from Innsmouth Summary
by Minerva-Amantine
Summary: I'm putting this up temporarily to share with a friend. Eventually I will write the fanfiction associated with this.


Objective Y'ha-nthlei: Part 2

The crew, Preacher, and Minerva stared in horror at the man with a gun to the head of their Captain. Harrow's face was blanched, and his eyes pleaded with the others not to move. The crazed radio man repeated his request from before.

"Surface! This mission is done! Turn around; we are all going home right now!" He barked, his fingers gripping the gun so tightly that his knuckles were white. Preacher spoke gently, trying to calm the disturbed crewman, trying to appeal to the man's religious side. His effort earned nothing but threats and promises of death. Next, Minerva tried to calm the man speaking as if to a wounded dog. The crewman responded violently promising to shoot her and her child after he was through with the Captain and Preacher. Minerva's eyes narrowed, the fingers of her hand nearest her crossbow twitching with a barely contained hormonal rage. The next voice that spoke up was the rabbi's.

"Yes son, do what you think is right." The rabbi's bulging eyes had fixed on the gunman. Preacher turned to the rabbi, furious that a man of God could be encouraging such behavior. Her attention drawn to the rabbi, Minerva glared at the man, something in the back of her mind stirred before a flash of shocked recognition crossed her face. Eyes wide, the gunman continued to spout death threats. The intercom crackled to life, and the engineers grunting excuse for speech could be heard. The crazed crewman sprang into action.

"What the hell did he say? Tell him to surface and shut up!" Harrow obliged, and the intercom fell silent. Before anyone else could act, a thud and shot rang out from the room next to the control area. The insane member of the crew fell to the ground bleeding from the head. Everyone looked over to see a man with his head swathed in bandages lying on the ground, gun in his hand. Harrow staggered away from the man, collapsing momentarily against a control panel. Despite his death threats, Preacher and the others tried to save the maddened crew member. Minerva, having little patience, hounded Commander Harrow, saying she had something to discuss in private. Despite the efforts of Preacher and the others, the gunman bled to death, expiring his last as the first, but mostly likely not last, casualty of the mission. Finally turning his attention to the rather frantic woman, Commander Harrow gestured for Preacher and Minerva to join him in the torpedo room. He asked Minerva what she had wanted to discuss and she stated flatly that she believed the good rabbi was in fact one of the enemy: a Deep One Hybrid. Minerva went on to describe his bulging, staring eyes and the fact that he had just been encouraging one of the men to violence! Surely a man of the cloth would not behave so.

Commander Harrow mulled over the thought for a moment, while Preacher disagreed with Minerva. Harrow asked Preacher to anesthetize the rabbi. Upon returning to the main control room, the suspected "fish man" was drugged and tied to a table where Minerva and Preacher searched him thoroughly. They found no gills or anything of the sort, but did find a piece of obviously Mythos related equipment: A candle allowing one to speak to anyone in their mind. Minerva showed this as evidence, before pocketing the item for herself. Preacher thought Minerva was wrong, that he just looked like a normal man, noting that both he and Minerva also carried occult items and were not necessarily evil either. Eventually she managed to convince Preacher, reminding him of the Chinese Deep Ones and Hybrids they had assaulted in the San Francisco Bay only a few years earlier.

The sub rose closer to the surface, and things were normal for a little while until the hydrophone once again detected something huge on the radar. Preacher suggested they fire a torpedo at it, which they did. Suddenly, a strange, unearthly song began to waft its way around the ship. Many crewmen paused, their eyes glazing over and bodies swaying in time to the strange melody. Preacher, Minerva, Baird, and the head engineer, who had come to the control room confused over the earlier event, were unaffected. The others danced, and started to descend the submarine, talking about going to heaven. This nonsense confused Preacher and Minerva. What did these men mean heaven? It was clear some sort of spell was in effect, and most likely related to the huge thing the hydrophone had detected. Not wanting to bother with the periscope, Minerva spat on the ground, and intoned some strange words, terrifying poor Baird, who turned just as green as the mist that rose from the saliva on the floor and drifted through the hull of the sub. Minerva closed her eyes, looking outside through the green, bloodshot eyeball that had materialized outside. Inside, Preacher saw her face contort in terror, a scream nearly tearing free from her. The sight that met her mind was truly horrifying: the figure, howling its seductive song, was none other than Father Dagon!

Inside the sub, the crew swayed and danced more violently. The engineer grunted in confusion, and the Captain ordered Preacher and Minerva to be stopped from preventing their descent to "heaven," which Preacher and Minerva now realized to be Y-hanth'lei. Preacher was knocked unconscious, and Minerva narrowly avoided a bullet which hit and minorly damaged some equipment. Desperately, Minerva tried to think of a way to stop the madness. She tried revealing her Elder Sign tattoo, which didn't have any noticeable effect. Finally, her mind hit on an idea, the gramophone. She made her way as fast as she could to the music player, and switched it on as the bandaged crewman leveled his gun at her again. Before he could shoot, another member of the crew got next to her and bashed his elbow into her face, knocking her out cold onto her back on the floor. The crew approached the head engineer, who backed up against the wall, raising his hands up in a non-threatening gesture. Suddenly, the sweet strains of jazz filled the compartment, and the men froze, seemingly shaking out of whatever trance they had been under. The crew quickly revived Preacher, Minerva, and Baird. Preacher explained that they had somehow been under the spell of some sort of creature. Preacher and Minerva took up their positions in the control room, and they began their descent into the deep to complete their mission.


End file.
